Their Yesterdays

by Harold Bell Wright

  DEATH

  And that winter's coat, also, began to appear thin and threadbare.

  By looking carefully, one could see that the twigs of the cherry treewere brightening with a delicate touch of fresh color, while the tinytips of the tender green buds were cautiously peeping out of theirsnug wrappings as if to ask the state of the weather. In the orchardand the woods, too, the Life that slept deep in the roots and underthe bark of trunks and limbs was beginning to stir as though, in itsslumber, it heard Spring knocking at its bedroom door.

  I do not know what business it was that called the man to aneighboring city. The particular circumstances that made the journeynecessary are of no importance whatever to my story. The importantthing is this: for the first time the man was forced to recognize, inhis own life and in his work, the fact of Death. He came to see that,in the most abundant life, Death cannot be ignored. Because Death isone of the Thirteen Truly Great Things of Life, this is my story: thatthe man was introduced to Death.

  Hurriedly he arranged for his absence, and, rushing home, packed a fewnecessities of travel in his grip, snatched a hasty dinner, and thusreached the depot just in time to catch the evening train. He wouldmake the trip in the night, devote the following day to the businessthat demanded his presence, and the next night would return to hishome city.

  The Pullmans were well filled, mostly with busy, eager, men who, likehimself, were traveling at night to save the daylight for their work.But the man, perhaps because he was tired with the labor of the day orbecause he wished to have for the business of the morrow a clear,vigorous, brain, made no effort to find acquaintances who might be onthe train or to meet congenial strangers with whom to spend a pleasanthour. When he had read the evening papers and had outlined in his minda plan of operation to meet the situation that compelled him to makethe hurried trip, he retired to his berth.

  The low, monotonous, hum of the flying wheels on the heavy steelrails; the steady, easy, motion of the express as it flew over themiles of well ballasted track; the dim light of the curtained berth,and the quiet of the Pullman, soon lulled the tired traveler to sleep.Mile after mile and mile after mile was marked off, with the steadyregularity of time itself, by the splendidly equipped train as itrushed through the darkness with its sleeping passengers. Hamlets,villages, way stations, signal towers, were passed with flash likequickness; while the veteran in the engine cab, with the schooling ofthirty years in the hand that rested on the throttle, gazed steadilyahead to catch, with quick eye and clear brain, the messages of thesignal lamps that, like bright colored dots of a secret code, appearedon the black sheet of night.

  With a suddenness that defies description, the change came.

  The trained eyes that looked from the cab window read a message fromDeath in the night ahead. In the fractional part of a second, the handon the throttle responded, doing in flash like movements all that thethirty years had taught it to do. There was a frightful jarring,jolting crash of grinding, screaming, brakes, followed on the instantby a roaring, smashing, thundering, rending of iron and steel andwood.

  The veteran, whose eye and brain and hand had been thirty years inservice, lay under his engine, a mangled, inanimate mass of flesh; Hisfireman, who had looked forward to a place on the engineer's side of acab as a young soldier dreams of sword and shoulder straps, lay stillbeside his chief. From the wrecked coaches, above the sound of hissingsteam and crackling flames, came groans and shrieks and screams oftortured men and women and children.

  Then, quickly, the hatless, coatless, and half dressed forms of themore fortunate ones ran here and there. Voices were heard calling andanswering. There were oaths and prayers and curses mingled with sharpspoken commands and the sound of axes and saws and sledges, as themen, who a few minutes before were sleeping soundly in their berths,toiled with superhuman energy to free their fellows from that horridhell.

  To the man who had escaped from the trap of death that had caught somany of his fellow passengers and who toiled now with the strength ofa giant among the rescuers, it all seemed a dream of terror from whichhe must presently awake. He did not think, then, of the Death that hadcome so close while he slept. He was not conscious of the danger thathad threatened him. He did not feel gratitude for his escape. He couldnot think. He could only strive madly, with the strength of despair,in the fight to snatch others from the grip of an awful fate; and, ashe fought, he prayed to be awakened from his dream.

  It was over at last.

  Hours later, the man reached his destination, and still, because hisbusiness was so urgent, there was no time for him to think of theDeath that had come so close. Rarely does the business of life givemen time to think of the Death that stands never far away. But, whenhis work was finished and he was again aboard the train, on his wayhome, there was opportunity for a fuller realization of the dangerthrough which he had passed so narrowly--there was time to think. Thenit was that the man realized a new thing in his life. Then it was thata new factor entered into his thinking--Death. Not the knowledge ofDeath; he had always had that of course. Not the fear of Death; thisman was no coward. But the _fact_ of Death--it was the _fact_ of Deaththat he realized now as he had never realized it before.

  All unexpected and unannounced--without sign of its approach orwarning of its presence--Death had stood over him. He had looked intothe eyes of the King. Death had touched him on the shoulder, as itwere, and had passed on. But Death would come again. The one firmlyfixed, undeniable, unalterable, fact in Life was, to him, now, thatDeath would come again. When or how; that, he could not know; perhapsnot for many years; perhaps before the flying train could carry himanother mile. How strange it is that this one fixed, permanent,unalterable, inevitable fact of Life--Death--is most commonly ignored.The most common thing in Life is Death; yet few there are whorecognize it as a fact until it presents itself saying: "Come."

  Going back into the years, the man recalled the death of his mother;and, later, when he was standing on the very threshold of his manhood,the death of his father. Those graves on the hillside were still inhis memory but they had not realized Death for him. His grief at theloss of those so dear to him had overshadowed, as it were, the fact ofDeath itself. He thought of Death only as it had taken his parents; hedid not consider it in thinking of himself. But now--now--he hadlooked into the eyes of the King. He had felt the touch of the handthat chills. He had heard the voice that cannot be disobeyed. Deathhad come into his life a _fact_.

  The low, steady, hum and whirr of the wheels and the smooth, easymovement of the train told him of the flying miles. One by one, thosemiles that lay between him and the end of his journey would go untilthe last was gone and he would step from the coach to the platform ofhis home depot. And, then, all suddenly, to the man, those flyingmiles became as the years of his life. Even as the miles of hisjourney were passing so his years had gone--so his years were goingand would go.

  The man was a young man still. For the first time, he felt himselfgrowing old. Involuntarily he looked at his hands; firm, strong, younghands they were, but the man, in his fancy, saw them shaking,withered, and parched, with prominent dull blue veins, and the skinnyfingers bent and crooked with the years. He glanced down at hispowerful, full moulded limbs, and, in fancy, saw them thin andshrunken with age. And, suddenly, he remembered with a start that thenext day would be his birthday. In the fullness of his young manhood'sstrength, he had ignored the passing years even as he had ignoredDeath. As he had learned to forget Death, he had learned to forget hisbirthdays. It was strange how fast the years were going, thought theman. Scarcely would there be time for the working out of his dreams.And, once, it had been such a long, long, time between his birthdays.Once, he had counted the months, then the weeks, then the days thatlay between. Once, he remembered--

  Perhaps it was the thought of his birthday that did it; perhaps it wasthe memory of those graves in the old cemetery at home. Whatever itswas, the man slipped back into his Yesterdays when birthdays were agesand ages apart and, more than an
ything else in the world, the boywanted to grow up.

  At seven, he had looked with envy upon the boy of nine while the yearsof grown up men were beyond his comprehension. At nine, fifteen wasthe daring limit of his dreams; so far away it seemed that scarcely hehoped to reach it. As for eighteen--one must be very, very, old,indeed, to be eighteen. How long the years ahead had seemed,_then_--and _now_, how short they were when looking back!And the birthdays--the birthdays that the man had learned toforget--how could he have learned to forget them! What days oftriumph--what times of victorious rejoicing--those days once had been!And so, with the fact of Death so recently forced into his life, withthe miles as years slipping under the fast whirring wheels that borehim onward, the man lived again a birthday in the long ago.

  Weeks before that day the boy had planned the joyous occasion, formother had promised that he should have a party. A birthday party!Joyous festival of the Yesterdays! What delightful hours were spent inanticipation! What innumerable questions were asked! What a multitudeof petitions were formed and presented! What anxious consultationswith the little girl who lived next door! What suggestions wereoffered, accepted and rejected, and rejected or accepted all overagain! What lists of the guests to be invited were made, revised andthen revised again! What counting of the days, and, as the day drewnear, what counting of the hours; not forgetting, all the time, tohint, in various skillfully persuasive and suggestive ways, as to thepresents that would be most fitting and acceptable! And at last, whenthe day had come, as all days must at last come, was there ever in thehistory of mortal man or boy such a day?

  There was real wealth of love in mother's kiss that morning. There washoly pleasure in the pride that was in father's face and voice. Therewas unmarred joy when the little girl captured him and, while hepretended--only pretended--to escape, gave him the required number ofthumps on the back with her soft little fist and the triumphant "oneto grow on." Then came, at last, the crowning event: and so the mansaw, again, the boys and girls who, that afternoon in his Yesterdays,helped to celebrate his birthday. Why had he permitted them to passout of his life? Why had he gone out of their lives? Why must theyears rob him of the friends of the Yesterdays?

  With the birthday feast of good things and the games and sports ofchildhood the busy afternoon passed. Up and down the road and acrossthe fields, the guests departed, with their party dresses soiled,their party combed hair disheveled, and their party cleaned facessmudged with grime; but with the clean, clean, joy of the Yesterdaysin their clean, clean, childish hearts. Together the boy and the girlwatched them go, with waving hands and good-bye shouts, until the lastone had passed from sight and the last whoop and call had died away.And then, reluctantly, the little girl herself went home and the boywas left alone by the garden hedge.

  Oh, brave, brave, day of the Yesterdays! Brave birthdays of the longago when Death was not a fact but a fiction! When the years were agesapart, and the farthest reach of one's imagination carried only tobeing grown up!

  From his Yesterdays the man came back to wonder: if Death should waituntil he was wrinkled, bent, and old--until his limbs were palsied,his hearing gone, his voice cracked and shrill, and his eyes dim--ifDeath should let him stay until he had seen the last of his companionsgo home in the evening after that last birthday--would there be one tostand beside him--to watch with him as the others passed from sight?Would there be anyone to help him celebrate his last birthday, ifDeath should fail to come again until he was old?

  * * * * *

  Everyone was very kind to the woman that morning when the word camethat her uncle had been killed in a railroad accident. All that kindhearts could do for her was done. Every offer of assistance was made.But there was really nothing that anyone could do just then. She mustfirst go as quickly as she could to her aunt.

  The man of authority, who had always seemed to understand her womanheart and who had paid to her the highest tribute possible for a manto pay a woman, had broken the news to her as gently as news of Deathcan be told, and, as soon as she was ready, his own carriage waswaiting before the entrance in the street below. Nor did he burden herwith talk as they were driven skillfully through the stream of thedown town traffic and then, at a quicker pace, through the more openstreets of the residence district.

  There is so little that can be said, even by the most thoughtful, whenDeath enters thus suddenly into a life. The man knew that the womanneeded him. He knew that, save for the invalid aunt, there was now nonear relative to help her do the necessary things that must be done.There was no one to help her think what would be best to do. So heasked her gently, as they neared the house, if she would not permithim, for the next few days, to take the place in her life that wouldhave been taken by an older brother. Kindly he asked that she trusthim fully--that she let him think and do for her--be a help to her inher need--even as he would have helped her had she consented to comeinto his life as he wished her to come. And the woman, because sheknew the goodness and honor of this man's heart, thanked him withgratitude too great for words and permitted him to do for her all thata most intimate relative would have done.

  At last it was over. The first uncontrollable expressions ofgrief--the arrangements for the funeral--the service at the house andthe long ride to the cemetery with the final parting and the return tothe house that would never again be quite the same--all those hard,first, days were past and to-morrow--to-morrow--the woman would goback to her work. In the final going over of affairs, the finishing ofunfinished business, the ending of undeveloped plans and prospects,the settling and closing of accounts, and the considering of newconditions enforced by Death, it had been made very clear that for thewoman to work was, now, more than ever necessary. There was, now, noone but her upon whom the invalid aunt could depend for even thenecessities of life.

  And the woman was glad that she was able to provide for that one whohad always been so gentle, so patient, in suffering and who, in hersorrow, was now so brave. Since the death of the girl's own mother,the aunt had taken, so far as she could, a mother's place in the lifeof the child; and, as the years had passed and the little girl hadgrown into young womanhood, she had grown into the heart of thechildless woman until she was as a daughter of her own flesh. So thewoman did not feel this added care that was forced upon her by thechanged conditions as a burden other than a burden of love. But still,that afternoon, when it was all over, and she faced the new futurethat Death had set before her, she realized the fact of Death as shehad never realized it before.

  The years since her mother's death had not been many, and, it seemedto her, now, that they had passed very quickly. She was only a littlegirl, then, and her uncle and his wife had taken her so fully intotheir hearts that she had scarcely felt the gap in her life after thefirst weeks of the separation had passed. Her mother belonged to thedays of her childhood and, though the years were not many as shelooked back, those childhood days seemed far, far, away. Death hadcome to her, now, in the days of her womanhood. Suddenly,unexpectedly, with awful, startling, reality, the fact of Death hadcome into her life; forcing her to consider, as she had neverconsidered before, the swiftly passing years.

  What--she asked herself as she thought of the morrow--what, for her,lay at the farthermost end of that procession of to-morrows? When thebest of her strength was gone with the days and weeks and months andyears--what then? When Death should come for that one who was, ineverything but blood, her mother and who was, now, her onlycompanion--what then? To be left alone in the world--to go, alone, allthe rest of the journey--this was the horror that Death brought toher. As she looked, that afternoon, into the years that were to come,this woman, who knew that she was a woman, and who was still in theglory and beauty of her young womanhood, felt suddenly old--she feltas though every day of the sad days just passed had been a year.

  And then, at last, from her grief of the present and from hercontemplation of the years that were to come, she turned wearily backto the long ago. In the loneliness and sorrow of her life she went,
again, hack into her Yesterdays. There was, indeed, no other place forher to go but back into her Yesterdays. Only in the Yesterdays can oneescape the sadness and loneliness that attend the coming of Death.Death has little power in the Yesterdays. In childhood life, Death isnot a fact.

  Funerals were nothing more than events of surpassing interest in thosedays--a subdued, intense, interest that must not be too openlyexpressed, it is true, but that nevertheless could not be altogethersuppressed. Absorbed in her play the little girl would hear, suddenly,the ringing of the bell in the white church across the valley; and itwould ring, not joyously, cheerily, interestingly, as on Sundays butwith sad, solemn, measured, notes, that would fill her childish heartwith hushed excitement. And then--it mattered not where he was or whathe was doing--the little boy would come, rushing with eager haste, tojoin her at the front gate where they always watched together for theprocession and strove for the honor of sighting first the long stringof vehicles that would soon appear on one of the four roads leading tothe church. And oh, joy of joys, if it so happened that the processioncame by the way that led past the place where they danced with sucheager impatience!

  First would come, moving with slow feet and drooping head, the oldgray horse and time worn phaeton of the minister; and they would feela little strange and somewhat hurt because the man of God, who usuallygreeted them so cheerily, would not notice them as he passed. But thesadness in their hearts would be forgotten the next moment as theygazed, with excited interest and whispered exclamations, at theshining, black, hearse with its beautiful, coal black, horses that,stepping proudly, tossing their plumed heads, and shaking the tasselson the long nets that hung over their glossy sides, seemed to invitethe admiration that greeted them. And then, through the glass sides ofthe hearse, the boy and the girl, with gasps of interest, woulddiscover the long black coffin half hidden by its load of flowers; or,perhaps, the hearse, the horses, and the coffin, would all be snowwhite which, the little girl thought, was prettiest of all. Then wouldfollow the long line of carriages, filled with people who wore theirSunday clothes; and the boy and the girl, recognizing a friend oracquaintance, here and there, would wonder to themselves how it wouldseem to be riding in such a procession. One by one, they would countthe vehicles and recall the number in the last funeral they hadwatched; gleefully triumphant, if this procession were longer than thelast; scornfully disappointed, if it were not so imposing. And then,when the last carriage had gone up the hill on the other side of thecreek and had disappeared from sight among the trees that half hid thechurch, they would wait for the procession to reappear after theservices and would watch it crawling slowly along the distant road onits way to the cemetery.

  And the next day they would play a funeral.

  Even as they had played a wedding, they would play a funeral. Only,they played a wedding but that once, while they played funerals many,many, times.

  Sometimes it would be a doll's funeral when the chief figure in thesolemn rites would be taken from the grave, after it was all over, andwould be rocked to sleep with the other dollies, none the worse,apparently, for the sad experience. Again, the part of the departedwould be taken by a mouse that had met a violent death at the hands ofthe cook; or, perhaps, they would find a baby bird that had fallenfrom its nest before its wings were strong. But the grandest, mosttriumphant, most successful funeral of the Yesterdays was a kittenthat had most opportunely died the very day a real grown up funeralhad passed the house. What a funeral that was--with an old shoe boxfor a coffin, the boy's wagon draped with pieces of black clothborrowed from the rag bag for a hearse, the shepherd dog for a proudlystepping team, and all the dolls in their carriage following slowlybehind! In a corner of the garden, not far from the cherry tree, theydug a real grave and set up a real tombstone, fashioned by the boy, tomark the spot. And the little girl was so earnest in her sorrow thatshe cried real tears at which the boy became, suddenly, very gay andboisterous, as boys will upon such occasions, and helped her to forgetright quickly.

  Oh, boy of the Yesterdays, who would not let his little girl mategrieve but made her laugh and forget! Where was he now? The womanwondered. Had Death come into his life, too? Were the years ever, tohim, as a funeral procession? Did ever he feel that he was growingold? Could he, now, make her forget her grief--could he help her tolaugh again--or had his power gone even as those Yesterdays whenDeath, too, was only a pleasing game?

  From the next room, a gentle voice called softly and the woman aroseto go to her aunt. For that one who was left dependent upon her shewould be brave and strong--she would go back to her work in themorning.

  Only children are privileged to play with the fact of Death. Only inthe Yesterdays are funerals events of merely passing interest. Only inthe Yesterdays does Death go always past the door.